The Reserve Bank of India hopes to roll out new features of the Digital Rupee and test its use in cross-border payments with international partners.
India’s central bank said it introduced new features and use cases for cross-border use of the digital rupee, indicating a possible shift towards international adoption.
The update was published in the Reserve Bank of India’s Annual Report from 2024-25, with CNBC TV18 reporting that the next phase of development will be based on lessons learned from existing pilots. RBI launched the Wholesale Digital Rupee Pilot in November 2022, followed by the Retail Pilot in December 2022.
Although details of the new use cases have not been revealed, the RBI says it is investigating CBDC pilots for cross-border payments “both bilateral and multilateral bases.” The value of digital rupee in circulation rose 334% year-on-year, up from 234.04 crores (approximately $28.1 million) in FY200 to 1,016.46 crores (approximately $122.1 million), according to the report.
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E-Rupee adoption has slowed, with the Reserve Bank of India reporting 1 million retail transactions by late June, reaching only after local banks introduced incentives and partially paying employee salaries using state-issued digital currency.
The RBI previously urged banks to increase transactions to at least 1 million per day by the second half of 2023. But that push has halted, and the gap between incentivized metrics and real user recruitment has raised questions about the future of digital currency initiatives.
read more: India pursues cross-border mobile payments and explores CBDC as the future of payments
